All I Need
by SlvrSoleAlchmst1
Summary: Suzaku grapples with the fate Lelouch left him. Will the burden of Zero's mask break him down until there is no trace of Kururugi Suzaku left, or will he find a way to live with the pain of his loss and triumph over his punishment?
1. Dreams

_Author Note: This is part one of two. This story turned out longer than I expected it would, so I figured I had best post it this way, while I continue to edit the crap out of the second half. Also, as a warning to those whom it may concern — this is a yaoi-flavored piece._

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Lelouch's young voice whispered from somewhere in the dark. Suzaku stirred, but did not want to open his eyes.

"Su_za_ku, don't be so _lazy_…." Suzaku could distinguish the wry upturn of lips in Lelouch's tone, even though he pretended to remain asleep to the senses. The sun had not fully risen, he could tell, for the light from the blinds wasn't warming his eyelids. Without warning, in the sun's place came the flutter of small lips against his lashes. "Wake up and come for breakfast, Suzaku, or Nunnally will worry." Soft breath grazed his cheek.

Suzaku's eyelids batted open. A childish and determined Lelouch squinted down at him.

"There," the fledgling Britannian prince said, "I knew you were conscious. Sluggish samurai! That Todou — I thought he was training you to be up at the crack of dawn."

_Ah_, Suzaku thought, rolling over and lifting an arm to scratch his nose. The arm was petite and smooth. _So we're children this time_.

Almost immediately upon this acknowledgement, Lelouch stepped again to the bedside. His footsteps were those of a man, not a child. Suzaku eyes were again closed, and he felt a playful prod at his forehead. "Honestly," said Lelouch, and this time his voice was deeper, wearier, blunted by experience. "I don't know why the military took you if you can't get up in the mornings." Suzaku peeked out from beneath his arm, which — he saw when he noted its heftiness — had returned to its normal size. Lelouch touched him again, this time on the nose. He perched on the mattress near his semi-sleeping quarry. Suzaku stirred, took a swipe at Lelouch's invasive hand, and missed.

"Where are your reflexes, Warrant Officer Kururugi? Or can't you reach me from down there?"

_I can't ever reach you_, Suzaku thought, but suddenly he stretched out and was able to clamp on to Lelouch's wrist.

He tugged Lelouch down atop the sheets.

Strands of ebony hair skimmed his face in the tumble. Lelouch's lips were near again, but not at Suzaku's eyelids; they grazed Suzaku's own lips softly, so softly as Lelouch caught himself on his elbows, and then Lelouch drew back in surprise and embarrassment. "Suzaku…."

_Just stay_, Suzaku wanted to say. _I don't want breakfast yet._

Outside the window, there erupted with sudden violence a vast surge of light and a boom to crack the eardrums.

It rocked the room, and the windowpanes rattled in the instant before the glass exploded inward to let muggy, ashy air stream in. Cloying, choking smell like dead things. Lelouch's hair rippled in the blast and the light of destruction reflected in his eyes, but oddly enough, they two on the bed were not harmed by the explosion.

"Suzaku… there isn't time to stay, you know." Lelouch touched his cheek. His fingertips seemed to meet moisture. Suzaku blinked. Had the blast hurt him after all? Lelouch held up his hand for Suzaku to see. No, the liquid shimmered clear, not crimson. Suzaku was crying.

He turned his face aside on the pillow, away from the horrors framed in the broken window, away from Lelouch's grim expression. Why couldn't they just stay like this?

Lelouch hesitated, and then Lelouch's lips brushed his brow, his jaw line, the side of his neck. Maddeningly lightly. Torturously slowly. Lelouch almost didn't feel present at all. Suzaku felt his tears roll down and soak the pillow.

"Suzaku," Lelouch commanded. "Suzaku, you have to wake up."

Suzaku woke up.

— / - / —

Suzaku stretched his shoulders back and rolled his neck around its axis. It didn't work as well as he'd hoped in the Zero suit. The mask dug unpleasantly into his skin when he rotated his head, and his arms felt restricted. He had always been more broad-shouldered than Lelouch; the fabric across his chest and shoulders pulled.

"Zero-sama, are you feeling quite well?"

Suzaku looked down at the girl in the wheelchair, who was peering around at him with eyes wide and lovely as a field of lilacs, or bluebells. "I'm all right, Your Highness," he said. "I slept a little badly last night, but it's nothing this walk won't cure."

He expected Nunnally to smile, nod, and turn back to the flowers. The garden through which he guided her curled up around them, vivid and wild. Because Nunnally could see it, she was inclined to stare all the more devoutly, speaking little and sighing often with great gusts of appreciation for the restored vision that allowed her the pleasure. But this time, instead of watching the flowers, Nunnally frowned at him. Suzaku wondered if she got tired of trying to decipher his moods and expressions through his mask.

"'I slept badly.' That is the same answer you gave me yesterday, and the same as the day before that." She squinted at him.

Suzaku blinked, but continued to push her chair, around a stone-paved bend and through an arch in a trellis of roses. "Is it?"

Nunnally turned back to the flowers after another moment passed, as if disappointed in his response. "You really haven't noticed, have you. You don't pay attention to the things you say."

"It's terrible if I've developed such a habit," Suzaku said, a hint of embarrassment in his voice. "Becoming preoccupied and forgetting what I've said before and what I haven't…." He reached up to run a hand sheepishly through his hair, and then remembered the mask. He wondered mirthlessly if he would ever get used to it. His hand fell back to its place on the wheelchair. "Please forgive me if I bore you with anything repetitive."

"That isn't what I meant." Nunnally extended a hand to part a curtain of ivy, and they kept going. "I meant that you haven't noticed your current condition. It's gone on and on." The smell of the air was sweet, but her voice stood out sour in contrast.

Suzaku slowed her wheelchair as the paving stones gave way to gravel. On the other side of the ivy gleamed small pool with lily pads, and thick fragrant moss that squatted around its edges. Nunnally's hair shimmered in the sunshine.

"You haven't noticed that you're growing weaker."

"Ah," Suzaku said, relieved that she hadn't mentioned anything further about his sleeping in particular. Carefully, he waded around her concern. "I haven't kept up on my training since the fighting stopped, perhaps because we've been focusing on politics. The current peace has made me lazy."

"You are deliberately misunderstanding me."

Suzaku stopped the wheelchair.

"When," Nunnally asked, using her arms to twist her torso fully around in her seat, "was the last time you sat with us in the dining room?" Her pink dress resembled the petals of a flower. "When was the last time you ate anything at all?"

Suzaku dropped his grip from the handles he'd been holding. For Nunnally to question him about his eating as well…. He was weary of the same confrontations. He recalled the stark accusations of Cornelia li Britannia at their last formal banquet. _And why isn't Zero taking part in the feast of peace and plenty? Perhaps he still has something up his sleeve…._

In fact, Suzaku knew his sleeve hung empty. And not only his sleeve, but his heart gaped vacant as well. He had told Cornelia that Zero never ate in the presence of others, for to do so would risk revealing his features. She had sneered at him, already aware of the fact, but in broiling bad humor from a previous debate and thus unable to pass up a chance at harassing Zero. Suzaku didn't blame her for remaining skeptical about a man who had always been unpredictable, and who never showed his face. Ohgi, after Cornelia's attack, had offered Zero a plate to take back to his room with the ease of habit and familiarity, but still Suzaku had refused.

"I assure you, Your Highness," he told Nunnally from his place at her wheelchair, "my health will be fine."

"It most certainly will not, at this rate! When was the last time you've assessed it?"

"Perhaps what I meant is that my health isn't in critical danger." Behind his mask, Suzaku's face was grim. He wished Nunnally would let it drop, but she didn't.

"Whether you think your health is or isn't in danger… that wasn't what I asked you. I asked you when you last ate. And if you won't answer that, then tell me when you last rested fully. Tell me when last you took a hint of fresh air, beyond the walks you go on as my escort." The birdsong hung muted all around them. "You can't remember, can you? You haven't come with me to Ashford to meet the others in months."

Suzaku cringed. Mention of his past life tormented him. People like Milly, and Nina, and Rivalz… they didn't know him as Zero. They talked about him in past tense. They looked, from behind the tint of his mask, like figures from a dream world millennia away on the map of time.

They all wondered why Nunnally had to bring Zero with her when she visited. Zero had killed a very important schoolmate of theirs, after all, even if said schoolmate had become an evil emperor.

And Kallen. Kallen had succeeded best so far at moving on, but when she associated now with the others, she became introspective. Suzaku often worried that reminiscing with her classmates made her guilty over his death in the Lancelot. Then she would stare hard at his Zero mask, even though Zero rarely said a word at these meetings, and Suzaku feared what she was remembering about Lelouch, what she was deducing about the Zero before her now, the Zero she surely suspected Lelouch himself must have chosen. Did Kallen imagine it might really be he, Suzaku, alive beneath the cape and helmet? After all, the Gurren had not been present in the instant the Lancelot exploded. Kallen's eyebrows had drawn together often, as if she might second-guess everything she'd seen with her own eyes on those last days of battle, but didn't dare — because the truth was too uncomfortable to stomach. Whatever level of acceptance Kallen had attained for herself the day Lelouch died, Suzaku felt Zero threatened when he got too close. He knew Kallen had loved Zero. He often wondered if he hadn't caused Kallen more pain by being present when Nunnally came to call. If, despite Kallen's great emotional strength, mingling among old ghosts didn't make her blood run cold at times, didn't drive her mad with 'what ifs.'

As if seeing his old classmates hadn't been bad enough, Arthur had never so much as sniffed at him.

It hurt too much to be with them all, and so Suzaku had abandoned it.

A green frog chirped and slipped away into the pool.

"I want you to turn us around," Nunnally said.

Reluctantly, Suzaku took hold of her wheelchair. "Where would you like to go?" The handles felt hot through his gloves.

Nunnally didn't answer him at first, but then she gestured toward the palace. They retraced their path, and this time the sounds of the garden seemed restrained.

"You are alone enough without purposely distancing yourself from what little life you are allowed to live as Zero," Nunnally said after a long silence had elapsed. "I can't stand it, Suzaku. I can't stand it."

Suzaku sucked in a sharp breath of air, although he knew they were alone. Nunnally had determined his true identity long ago, but in honor of her brother's dying wishes, she had continued to treat Suzaku like Zero. Suzaku wished, for a moment, that he could have avoided Nunnally's detection back then and remained in anonymity forever, but as it stood…. The one he served most closely now as Zero knew who he was, and it plagued him. Moreso in moments when she tossed discretion aside.

"Please don't call me that," he said when he could feel his limbs again. The sunshine beat down ruthlessly, and all that moved were the butterflies and the white fluffy clouds, but Suzaku felt as if the ground sank beneath him. He had gone through Zero Requiem. He had spent countless days and nights conforming to the identity of Zero. Suzaku Kururugi was dead, and reviving him would revive every sensation of pain, loss, and guilt that Suzaku Kururugi had felt. Suzaku closed his mouth and refused to speak further.

The palace grew visible in the distance.

Nunnally turned her head away from it, and away from him. "Something bright has gone out of you."

— / - / —

He woke up sweating, with his stomach curling, and his bed sheets bunched like wild grapes. But his dreams had not been sweet, like nectar on the tongue, or even like grapes; they had been nightmares. Suzaku lay awake in his bed, panting — disconnected and struggled gasping, like fighting to breathe through a damp strip of cloth. It was light outside, but cloudy, for only gray filtered through the blinds. He didn't know what hour it was. His body felt immune to time.

With each of his limbs aching, he rolled from his back to his side. His breathing slowed, but he closed a hand tightly around the sheets and squeezed, pressing his face into the pillow. The pillow was soft on his features, too soft all of a sudden, and he wished he had his mask on to block out all sensation. But would it protect him, here in his bed? He couldn't wear it when he was sleeping, and even if he could, an object like that wouldn't save him from his sleeping fears.

Lelouch, again, had walked through his dream world like a wraith.

Suzaku forced himself to sit up, and his hand caught in his tousled hair when he tried to rake it away from his brow. His abdomen clenched tight, and he shuddered; the cool air of the room hit his bare torso and he felt himself returning to full consciousness with the shock. He wrapped his arms around himself to balance out the temperature.

Lelouch had embraced him similarly what felt like moments ago. He had sported his shining emperor's clothes, blood leaking from Suzaku's stab wound, bleeding all over the bed and onto Suzaku too, but he'd been gentle and unblaming, chanting low and intimately in Suzaku's ear for him to wake up, Suzaku, wake up.

Lelouch always wanted him to wake up. And yet, whenever Suzaku did, he felt emptier than he had in his dreams and his nightmares.

Suzaku swung his feet over the bedside and reached for his Zero uniform.

— / - / —

It glittered, the bloody garnet between the wings at the hilt, as did the emeralds trailing down the shaft. The thing itself was golden and magenta, and terrifyingly lethal.

The blood had dried along its edges.

Suzaku stared at it, and stared some more. Empress Nunnally had petitioned to have it hung above the mantle in the wide-open Great Hall the evening after Lelouch had died. There was hardly any opposition to the proposal; after all, Emperor Lelouch had been a tyrant and a devil, so why not display the sword that killed him? A shield of many centuries had been moved aside for the weapon that finished Lelouch vi Britannia. Upon Suzaku's request, Nunnally had not cleaned or polished it after the slaughter. The Great Hall gleamed, filled with treasures from ages of heroes long past, but now the capstone of Suzaku's existence hung at the forefront among them — a tainted, dully-shining, ruthless reminder.

His punishment. He stared.

Someone's footsteps sounded behind him; Suzaku noticed Jeremiah Gottwald on the far side of the Hall, moving briskly as if he'd been called somewhere. Jeremiah caught sight of Suzaku, jerked in surprise, and then halted. "My Lord Zero."

Suzaku turned his head back to the sword.

Jeremiah hesitated, but after a moment of silence he made his way to Suzaku's side. "You've heard of the conference with the representatives overseas, no doubt."

Suzaku didn't answer, and so they stood.

After a short pause, Jeremiah cleared his throat. "Li Xingke's illness caused he and Empress Tianzi to leave rather suddenly after they were released, but it seems he's well again now, for the time being. They both have expressed a wish to see Zero, for they have not yet been given the chance to thank him in person for freeing them from Lelouch the Devil."

Suzaku's fingers twitched. He remembered the roughness of the sword's grip, the weight of the blade. He remembered the resistance of Lelouch's sinewy body.

"I have ordered Schneizel to go in my place so that I may be represented," Suzaku said, "But there's no need for me to attend the overseas conference myself. I do not need to be thanked, and Tianzi and Empress Nunnally will be able to reach a peaceful agreement without the interference of Zero." He saw Jeremiah's jaw stiffen, but when the man spoke again, it was controlled.

"It's not about interference, Lord Zero. It's simple diplomacy, and it's the same for all of us. I have come all the way back from my orange plantation as a result of it. It's about Zero's presence and what he stands for."

Suzaku pivoted, to look at Jeremiah with his features emotionless. Jeremiah stared back at the smooth visor of the Zero mask. "And what do I stand for now, Lord Gottwald?"

Jeremiah's communicator rang, but neither of them moved.

"I think," Jeremiah said, equally stone-faced, "you should know in your heart the answer to that." He pressed a button. "Gottwald. Yes. …Yes."

Suzaku contemplated the feelings in his heart, or tried to. Zero gave himself to the people, to those without defenses. He fought for them, eternally sacrificing his own happiness for the sake of the greater good. Zero was an ageless, undying symbol born of strife and inequality and suffering, made to lift up hope like a beacon in the dark. Suzaku did not need his heart to remember that.

Perhaps that was the problem.

Jeremiah watched him from the corner of one eye as he spoke into his communicator.

Suzaku had abandoned his identity, his last living companions, and his former lifestyle willingly — for the sake of all the punishment, repentance, and conviction that made up Zero Requiem. He had not mourned the loss of these things once it became apparent that they were truly impossible to hold on to. However, as time passed and he grew into his new role, he found that he lost something else. Something human inside of him.

Zero was only a symbol, and as that symbol, Suzaku was barred from any acknowledgment that he might desire things, miss people, suffer, feel loss, feel passion. He could not afford to love… could not afford to _be_ loved. Zero was both less than and more than a man, and it ripped Suzaku's soul open to think that Lelouch had survived this way as well, blocking out his own emotions for the sake of something larger. The realization that he and Lelouch now shared even more made Suzaku long to be close to the man with whom his fate was tied, and yet Lelouch was dead. There was a hole in his place that grew deeper as the months crawled by.

What did Zero stand for now? Hollowness, lifelessness, sickness of heart. How could he support the world that Lelouch and Nunnally wanted to see so long as he felt this way? Suzaku was failing.

Jeremiah still had a hand at his ear. "Yes, Your Highness. Understood."

Suzaku lifted his arm, stretched his fingers out to run them over the painstaking detail of the mantle. He could not reach the mighty sword from where he stood, but he didn't want to touch it. Lelouch's blood had dried an opaque, rusty auburn, and Suzaku feared it would crumble and fall away if his fingers came into contact with it.

Jeremiah hung up. "Cornelia-sama requests that everyone taking part in the conference report immediately to the bay area. She specifically inquired about Zero's intentions."

"I will accompany you to the bay and give the entire entourage my best wishes and a parting speech."

Jeremiah followed Suzaku's gaze to the gleaming sword. "It isn't advisable for Zero to abandon his duty at a time when a show of goodwill might warm hearts more than his most recent act of violence."

Suzaku's voice was hard. "Zero supports justice and equality on a worldly scale. I'm afraid warming individual hearts was only ever a side affect of my larger objectives, Lord Jeremiah." He didn't move.

Jeremiah remained perfectly professional, but when he turned to go, he shook his head. "It pains me to see that certain hearts grow cold instead of warm. Would he have wanted this of you, I wonder?" He retreated from the Great Hall.

Suzaku ached to raise a hand to his eyes, to feel if they were damp with grief after Jeremiah's words. He remembered the dream where Lelouch had touched his cheek, and Suzaku had been surprised to find tears come away on his friend's slender fingers.

Suzaku could no longer tell, awake or asleep, when he was crying.

— / - / —

Lelouch's candle floated before him in the memorial pool, surrounded by a fleet of others. They bobbed, drifted, and flickered, until one by one, the candles with names Suzaku didn't recognize winked out into darkness. Then the only ones left were people he had known, there with Lelouch in the water. Charles. Clovis. Euphie. Too many Knights of Rounds. Darlton. Marianne.

Names of the dead that would have had no place in Britannia's royal lair appeared there too. Rolo, Shirley. Suzaku gazed upon them.

He could hear voices when these candles twinkled. Voices that ricocheted softly around the dim chamber and seemed to emanate from the flames themselves. At times he strained to hear them. Rising, falling, so many broken syllables, sobs and pleas and admonitions, but some of it was clear.

_All hail Britannia!_

_I am Euphemia li Britannia of the Empire, and the Third Princess of the Royal Family._

_The Sword of Akasha. This is a weapon for destroying God…._

_I order you to love me!_

Suzaku's eyes filled with tears.

_Suzaku is always the one pulling you up, isn't he?_

_I love your stubbornness, and your kindness and your strength! Your sad eyes, your clumsiness, and the way you have trouble with cats!_

_Now that you've been made a Knight of Rounds, I order you — cover up Zero's left eye._

_Nothing is unforgivable. It must be that you're the one who can't forgive him._

_To all those who call themselves Japanese, I have a favor to ask! Do you all mind dying?_

Nothing but the dimness, the candles, and the spectral voices.

Soon enough, the candles of these people winked out as well, and it was only Lelouch's name that remained.

Suzaku waited for Lelouch's candle to melt down and putter out too, but it didn't. It did not fade away — unlike his memories of Lelouch, which grew fuzzier the longer Lelouch was gone. The candle shone purple, like Lelouch's eyes, but could Suzaku recall the exact hue of those eyes anymore? The way they changed in each sort of light, darkened just so whenever Lelouch felt anger, courage, passion? Could Suzaku recall anymore when the irises would appear glittery and variant, mixed hues of violet, lilac and crimson, shining together like stained glass? There had been a time when that was possible. Suzaku waited for the candle to wink out, to simply end, but it _didn't_.

It was as if Lelouch's candle were everlasting, destined to endure for eons and eons before it might possibly extinguish itself. Suzaku stared at it until the tiny flame burned into his vision. And he listened.

_I must spill yet more blood, so the blood already spilt will not be in vain._

_Before creation there must be destruction. If my soul stands in the way, then I'll cast it aside._

_But I can't return to the past! I can't undo what I've done!_

The candle flame burned brighter.

_Lelouch vi Britannia commands you…._

And another candle suddenly emerged in the gloom.

_Why do people lie? It isn't only because they struggle against each other! It's also because there's something that they're seeking._

The second candle was a pale shade of green, but it faced backward, and Suzaku couldn't read the name.

_What I want… is tomorrow!_

The candle rotated serenely. Suzaku read his own name at last on its front, saw his candle gently bump Lelouch's. Heard Lelouch's voice frighteningly clearly then, a cool whisper beside his right ear. Both candles burned and crackled brightly.

_This is also a punishment for you. You will be the defender of justice and wear a mask forever. You will no longer be able to live as Kururugi Suzaku. You will sacrifice all of your own happiness for the world… eternally._

The two candles bobbed to the edge of the pool near where Suzaku was standing, leaving the dimness to grow dimmer still behind them. Suzaku could not see the other side of the pool anymore. He knelt down. He reached for Lelouch's candle.

Lelouch's candle sank away out of his reach, below the placid water with a hiss as the light extinguished. No! It was supposed to be inextinguishable! Suzaku glared at his own candle. He heard his own voice.

_Zero! You deceive the people who trust you to the very end!_

_I know you. In the end, you'd betray the entire world, the way it's betrayed you! I'm not going to let your sick, twisted dreams be realized!_

Suzaku threw his hands up to cover his ears, for the echo of his own bellows played back at him was deafening. He squinted his eyes. Why was he hearing his voice from the past? And his candle flame, it was growing, sparking, engulfing the entire candle!

_Your very existence is a mistake! You need to be erased from the face of the earth! I'LL take care of Nunnally!_

_I told you before, Lelouch, that I was going to change this world from the inside…._

Suzaku found he couldn't breathe.

_To you, both Shirley and Euphy were simply pawns for your ambition?_

_Answer me, Lelouch! Why did you cast a 'live on' Geass on me? WHY!_

He opened his eyes and they watered; he looked at his candle and it was no longer a candle. It licked in hot tendrils along the edge of the pool against all logic, creating a mad ring of fire from stone. The smoke billowed thick, invaded his lungs. He coughed, choked, and coughed again.

_Our strategic objective has not changed. We cannot stop just because we know Nunnally is alive! What is Zero Requiem for then!_

Suzaku coughed, and coughed, and his throat seared like sandpaper, but he wanted to holler. Tears, tears from smoke and his frustration, coursing down his face in rivulets through the soot. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. So much of this was his fault.

He felt woozy, weightless, and he slumped forward onto his hands. No air, coughs like sandpaper…. He was going to die here, in this mad conflagration of his own doing. Fire wall-to-wall now, fire up to the ceiling. Licking at his clothing, singeing his hair and his skin. Even the water frothed and bubbled. Where was Lelouch's candle?

_Wake up, Suzaku!_

Suzaku's eyes snapped open violently, just as a cough wracked his body and he rolled over on his side to give in to it. His fingers clutched at the sheets as he half sat up; the sweat poured from his forehead. Still he couldn't breathe.

"Suzaku. Suzaku!"

A cool cloth at his brow.

He moaned aloud and collapsed back onto his mattress. His vision began to clear, but his chest heaved. There was no fire. No smoke. There were no candles, and Lelouch's voice was gone.

The woman's sigh sounded shaken. "Suzaku-sama, thank heavens. I thought you wouldn't wake. You're very sick. Come now, you must concentrate and drink this."

"Sayoko…."

"No, don't try to sit up that far again. Just guide the glass; I will support it." He swallowed something thick and sweet, something fresh and a little pulpy. "Orange juice from the plantation," Sayoko said. Then, "Suzaku-sama, I must overstep my boundaries and tell you that allowing yourself to fall into this condition is absolutely reprehensible, and Lelouch-sama would never have wanted this of you. If he could see you this way, he would be upset." Her apron was white, so white and blinding in the fluorescent lights. His shades had been drawn. Was it raining outside?

Suzaku turned his head and would not take any more orange juice.

"If you don't drink it, you will never get up from this bed. If you don't get up from this bed, Zero cannot take part in this world."

"The only Zero worth following has already left this world."

Sayoko stood there for a long time, neither speaking nor moving. Suzaku's head pounded, and he ignored the cloth on his brow, for it brought him no comfort. How could he have failed to see it? How could he have failed to see the ways in which he had hurt Lelouch, betrayed Lelouch, just as surely as he had always accused Lelouch of hurting and betraying him? Lelouch had merely borne it, had never collapsed under the weight of Suzaku's utter selfishness and brutality. And yet he, Suzaku….

His breaths were uneven. "L-Lelouch…."

"Isn't here," Sayoko said, neither gently nor with too harsh a tone, and the response was something Suzaku felt he had heard before. "Lord Gottwald was right. If I had not arrived soon enough, I might not have been able to nurse you to health. We would have had to bring in outside doctors, risked your identity completely. We are lucky it didn't come to that."

Suzaku could not muster the energy to respond.

Sayoko scanned him a final time. "I see I have done all I can, and the rest must be accomplished inside of you." The juice glass clinked down on the table. "Drink. And rise." She bowed and retreated through the door, careful to lock it soundly behind her.

* * *

_Author Note: No one told me how goddamned emo this first chapter turned out to be. I didn't notice until after I'd already written and edited it. Emo, emo stupid Suzaku! That's honestly the only way to describe that! All of a sudden he reminds me of Simon after episode 8 of Gurren Lagann…. Aaand, I'm cringing now. _

_It doesn't help that I already feel like this isn't my best work in terms of Geass pieces I've written. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM HERE. (I suspect it actually has to do with the fact that I'm trying to cover much more scope and involve more characters than I usually do in any of my shorter pieces...)_

_...All the more reason to post the second half of this and redeem myself and Suzaku. Just hold on, Suzaku! Maybe things will get better for you?_


	2. Fantasies

For the next five days and nights, Suzaku stayed in his bedroom and dreamed.

There were times he awoke. Paced around his bedroom. Flung the curtains aside, stared at the rain, then at the sun bursting forth or at the soundless night before he yanked the fabric back again and returned to his bed. When his body ached for movement, he did pushups on the floor — regardless of the hour. He did sit-ups. He excavated his bokken from the closet where he had buried his former life and did forms across the room. He drank orange juice and ate sparingly and his body grew healthier, but his mind remained interminably dark.

Jeremiah appeared once or twice, speaking in low words that Suzaku hardly considered, until it seemed the man gave up the effort of talking him into sense. Then it was quiet once more. Nunnally did not try to speak with him. Behind her mask of Empress, she trembled angrily at his behavior, Suzaku knew, but permitting him to stay shut up was her way of leaving Zero's fate entirely in Suzaku's hands — the way her brother had wanted it.

But Suzaku didn't think of Nunnally, and didn't think of her brother. He spent his few waking hours merely breathing, merely existing, taking what little solace he could in the simple task of consciousness — until the thoughts and feelings he avoided overcame him like a great wave, and he lay down again to sleep to shut them out.

Yet try as he might, once asleep, he could not escape his dreams.

_Ah, you tireless jock — can't you let me skip gym class just once?_

_That's not the right equation, Suzaku. Let me help you before you make a fool of yourself._

_The president is up to her schemes again. Come this way; we'll hide in the bell tower._

_It's nice to meet like this on the rooftop, isn't it._

_Do you really believe Zero's methods are bad?_

_Suzaku. _

_Suzaku. _

_Wake up, Suzaku._

Too often, the dreams began as something sweet, only to turn inexorably into nightmares. In one, Suzaku and Lelouch rode the train past the Shinjuku ghetto; Suzaku stood silently holding the handrail while Lelouch motioned out the window, explained how he would improve the buildings and the quality of living. Then the window shattered, and Lelouch's body went spiraling away — sucked off into oblivion. Suzaku's hands, weighted by something unseen, were incapable of reaching out to save him. He couldn't even cry out. In another dream, he and Lelouch picnicked on the sunny Ashford lawn with Shirley, until a contingent of nondescript Knightmare frames from a unit he couldn't identify careened onto the premises and gunned down everyone — every student, teacher, and little gray cat. Lelouch and Suzaku alone remained unharmed, and then Charles zi Britannia stepped down from the largest Knightmare Frame and ordered Suzaku to shoot Lelouch. When Suzaku refused with a shake of his head, Charles shot _him_, but Lelouch got in the path of the bullet and took the damage himself. Charles disappeared in a tangle of coded symbols, and Suzaku tried to save his friend, but the blood kept flowing, and flowing, and seeping from Lelouch's chest onto the grass. Lelouch, with bloodslicked fingers, grasped Suzaku's hand. "Suzaku, it doesn't matter, just wake up." Suzaku awoke sobbing.

He dreamed, and woke, and dreamed again, wondering if the lines between dreams and reality would soon disappear.

On the fifth night, he found himself in a kind of dream he'd never had before.

Lelouch sprawled in a field of open grass and buttercups, lying on his back beneath the shade of a solitary tree. Suzaku appeared at the edge of the clearing, spotted Lelouch from some distance away, and meandered to his side, marveling at their surroundings under a blue sky.

"Lelouch?" he said when he drew near at last. Then he lifted a hand to his throat. He could speak! Always before this, he had found himself voiceless in dreams. "Where are we?"

Lelouch's eyes were closed. "I'm not sure. One peaceful spot or another. It doesn't take much to get here — just will."

"I don't think I know what you mean." Suzaku sat down beside him, and picked a buttercup. He held it against his wrist until his skin glowed golden, and monitored his friend.

Lelouch had worn his deep red jacket, and the pants that snapped up one side. The jacket was tucked under his head like a pillow, and Suzaku's eyes roamed the prostrate figure thus revealed. Lean torso, milky white skin, pants stretched tight across his hips. Lelouch's eyelashes fluttered open and suddenly there were purple orbs gazing into his.

"I've been waiting for you here for quite some time, Suzaku."

"In a place like this… so much like… heaven?" Suzaku looked around again in awe, at the picture-perfect scenery, but his sense of serenity didn't last. "Of course it's like heaven." His comfort crashed groundward like a felled tree. "You're dead."

Lelouch chuckled softly. "Am I? I may be. But if I am, and we're both in this place, then so are you now." He pushed himself up to a sitting position and beckoned to Suzaku gently. "Come here."

Suzaku remained where he was, but his heart rate increased. Alone with a dead Lelouch? He shook his head.

Lelouch sighed and rolled his eyes. "You will never not be stubborn. Fine. I will go to you." Lelouch moved in, placed a hand lightly against Suzaku's chest, and moved his lips to the vicinity of Suzaku's ear.

"Ah— wait! What are you doing?" Suzaku had not anticipated contact. And it seemed, in a way it never had before, that the contact was so potent, so believable, more than any touch he could remember from the past. Lelouch's fingers pressed more firmly against his chest, and Suzaku realized that this was intimate, intimate like he'd never dared to— "C-Can't you just tell me whatever it is from where you were sitting? What's— ah!" He tensed at Lelouch's breath on the sensitive shell of his ear. At the slickness of the tongue that darted out to linger there.

"Suzaku. I want you to feel what it's been like." Lelouch's palm wandered a bit, spread itself over his heart.

"Nngh… feel what _what's_…? Aahn, don't—! L-Lelouch, with your mouth there— I don't like—" Lighter movement. More maddening and quick, the pressure of teeth on the flesh of his earlobe. "Aah!"

"You don't like it?" Suzaku felt hot. "Because it's not enough? Because it hurts to have it, and it hurts not to?" Lelouch's tone waxed sinister.

"Le_louch_!" He dropped the small buttercup he'd been clutching in his fingers.

"Feel it, Suzaku." The hand on his chest began to push hard against him, harder almost than Suzaku could bear without allowing himself to be knocked flat.

"But why are you doing this!"

A darker chuckle this time. "Because this, Suzaku…." The movement of Lelouch's lips against his skin tingled, and his body threatened to give in. "This is what it was like… for me."

"You— aah, AAAAAH!" Suzaku's cry this time was not one of confusion, or of conflicted desire. It was pain, unbearable pain, as the hand Lelouch pressed against his heart broke through his flesh and his rib cage and plunged inside of him. Suzaku screamed. He screamed and screamed, but it seemed his body had frozen, and Lelouch was the only one moving anymore, the only one speaking words.

"Yes, Suzaku," Lelouch exclaimed over Suzaku's cries. "To be loved by you as a close friend, to be cherished by you, but then to be lied to, and fought against…. It felt like this." Lelouch's long slender fingers dug into Suzaku's chest cavity, cracked the ribcage further, sought a hold more firmly. "To be held back, and then reeled in, over and over! To have you offer to save Nunnally if I would make my lies the truth, only for that offer to be ripped out of my grasp when you betrayed me…." His fingers burrowed deeper, and Suzaku screamed more. Lelouch fell silent, to lick and nip again at Suzaku's earlobe and to kiss the side of his neck, to send shockwaves of pleasure ricocheting around the pain — shockwaves that then blended into the pain, _became_ the pain.

"Suzaku, you sold me out to my demon of a father, to Britannia. Your eyes for so long were dull, heartless. Yes, heartless…." The pain was so blinding all of a sudden that Suzaku ceased to scream. His vocals broke there in the open field, his breath escaping away from him while he hung in a moment where time twisted into itself.

Then Lelouch ripped back his hand. In it pulsed Suzaku's heart.

Suzaku cried out once more and collapsed onto the grass.

"Does it hurt to die, Suzaku? It was what you wanted before all of this. And yet instead you killed _me_…."

Suzaku struggled to answer, but his vision was going dark. _I didn't do it because I wanted… you to die! I did it because… your dying was… the only…._ His lips felt numb.

"The only way to save the world? And that's the same reason you decided to take your new punishment and keep living, isn't it." Suzaku saw the blood from his shriveled heart dripping down onto Lelouch's forearm. "But tell me, Suzaku, how was any of it more important than the simple and selfish pursuit of individual happiness, than the way you and I fe—"

_L-Lelouch—!_

"…It doesn't matter now, I suppose, Suzaku." Suzaku's vision was gone now and he couldn't speak. No more light, no more voice, no more. He couldn't answer Lelouch. Yes, it hurt to die. But it also… felt all right, this pain…. Was it because he knew that destruction of things brought about creation anew?

"Suzaku." Lelouch sank down beside him; Suzaku could feel the lithe and tender body flush against his on the ground. He heard his own heart, beating weakly in Lelouch's hand. It beat slower and slower. Death hovered. Death _wanted_ him. One last heartbeat and there would be nothing.

Lips caressed his temple. "Now, Suzaku, before it's too late for you… wake up."

— / - / —

Suzaku drew a sharp breath and opened his eyes.

He was lying on his back, on his bed. The covers beside him felt warm, but Lelouch was not there. Suzaku's reality wavered. He noticed that he was soaked with sweat, and his limbs tingled as if he'd only just been released from the throes of some frenzy, but his breathing was steady. His throat felt hoarse. Had he cried out in his sleep?

Lelouch had torn out his _heart_.

Suzaku brought an arm up to cover his face, his dream still burning graphically in his mind. What time was it? Did the sun shine outside? He'd never had a dream that vivid, that brutal, his punishment disguised at first as sweetness, the better to cut him. Such violence and unadulterated feeling. Suzaku stirred and decided not to go back to sleep.

Someone else in the room stirred with him.

Suzaku shot up in bed; immediately his head throbbed, and he clapped a palm to his brow. But there was someone in the chair in the corner that he focused on with growing horror….

Knees tucked up. A plump yellow shape on the ground at the chair's side. Long, green hair.

"C.C.!" Suzaku scanned her twice in disbelief. Lelouch's old accomplice, here, now?

Impossible.

Suzaku glared around the room. He was, perhaps, still dreaming — and a cruel dream it was if it tricked him thus into thinking he had awoken when he hadn't. Had his dreams become even more twisted?

"Finally awake, knight of mourning? I was going to shake you if you kept up that noise."

"N-noise?" Suzaku stared.

"In your sleep. But never mind that — get up." C.C. rose from the chair and yanked the curtains aside.

Pale morning light flooded the floorboards. She wore a short beige jacket, slim pants, and scuffed boots that she had not bothered to remove. His floor showed dirt where she had stepped. Suzaku decided he wasn't dreaming.

"C.C., I thought your intention after Lelouch's death was to go away forever."

Golden eyes pierced his, studying him with a hint of long-carried sorrow. "I can't go away forever. I'm immortal. Get up."

Suzaku held her gaze.

It was all rather unexpected, to say the least.

C.C. had disappeared the day of Zero Requiem, and not a single member of the royal cabinet had heard tell of her whereabouts since then. Suzaku hadn't believed that he would see her again in his lifetime. Now, as she stood in his bedroom and ordered him fully awake, he was not sure he wanted to.

Carefully, Suzaku swung his feet to the floor. "What are you doing here, C.C.," he said, aware that it hadn't been a question so much as a statement of begrudging acceptance toward her command for him to get up.

She turned away and looked outside, hugging Cheese-kun against her chest. "Aah, why? Are you embarrassed that I caught you making noises in your sleep?" There was no emotion in it. She hadn't changed at all, and didn't care whether or not he was embarrassed. Then, "I heard, even out in the country, that the world hasn't seen Zero for quite some time. They think it's odd, for Zero to disappear and stop overseeing negotiations. Nunnally's excuses for you aren't convincing everyone."

"Did you come to scold me too?"

C.C.'s gaze traced the lazy path of a bird before she fixed her eyes once more on him. Her voice vibrated the air, low like a brass bell. "What did you dream about?"

Suzaku shuddered, though from her question or an innocent draft he didn't know. C.C. passed him the closest article of clothing to hand, and he took it without comment. It was a white-collared shirt, and he stood and buttoned it up stiffly, reaching next for the pants at the foot of his bed. He tugged them on over his boxers.

His dreams. They all meant something, didn't they? If Suzaku hadn't seen it before, he saw it now. Lelouch, always near him… and most recently, affectionate and lethal at the same time — just like he'd been when he was acting as both student and Zero….

Suzaku was reliving it, reliving it again. His entire life with Lelouch from childhood to Requiem, in fragments and flashes and surges, over and over with symbols and conundrums. The pain and desire and longing ignored in his waking life festered, wrenched back from the dead in his sleeping one. Never any order — starting from the middle, skipping back to the beginning. Agony unyielding whenever he dreamed about the ending. And for what purpose, these dreams? To punish him, to wake him sweating. Over, and over, and over again. Though they brought him occasional pleasures, they left him robbed of whole contentment — endlessly denied… and yet sated enough to endure one more plodding, empty day… and one more, until he could dream again. These dreadful dreams left him wanton, left him lost, left him a passion-struck mess.

"Stop thinking dirty thoughts," said C.C..

"I don't believe you have any knowledge of my thoughts." Would he ever escape the agony of his dreams?

"Well," C.C. sighed. "It was plain on your face when I came in. I didn't guess that, of all people, Kururugi Suzaku would lean that way toward Lelouch…."

"Lean?"

C.C. deposited Cheese-kun into the chair she had vacated. "Don't tell me…?" She smoothed her hair. "You really are a lumbering-minded creature, not to make discoveries about feelings even after the person you want is gone."

"I see, you mean it that way. You're wrong, C.C.; it was Euphie I—"

"It doesn't matter. Keep it to yourself. He _is_ gone, so it's pointless even if you did want him."

For some reason, Suzaku wanted to hit her. She seemed to note the sentiment with mirth in her eyes, and she fairy-stepped forward in her shoddy boots… to plant a kiss against his lips. Suzaku's eyes flew wide.

"It's from Lelouch," she said. "Unfortunately now that he's dead it has to come to you secondhand."

Suzaku ran a hand casually across his violated mouth. "I understand, all of a sudden, why he sometimes called you a witch."

"Now that, you could never understand, Kururugi." She moved with hard purpose and shoved him back into a sitting position on his mattress, both her hands pressing against his shoulders.

"What are you—?"

"Do you want to see him?"

"Wh—"

"Don't struggle. Look around you. Do you want to see him?"

Suzaku looked around. He was no longer in his room. Instead, he saw white, so much white, and blurry mixed up images in shades of grey lurking around the edges. Pieces of the past. She was touching him, and she had kissed him. The kiss of a witch. The spell of an immortal. C.C. still had….

"If you don't see him, I'm afraid you're going to do something stupid. You'll waste away. You can't keep on the way you are."

"C.C., if this is real, then I…."

"Don't sound like you're about to grovel your thanks that this is real. It isn't. It's only a piece of him, no better than your dreams. It's only…." She stopped, and her gaze held him. He couldn't read her expression. "But he'll be himself, at least. Completely himself. And you'd better make the best of it, because there's only so long I want myself vulnerable."

"I understand," Suzaku said. "But how do I…?"

"Just think of him. Just wish it, just use your will." Her eyes had gone teary, or perhaps it was the mist that rose as Suzaku began to think of Lelouch and C.C. began to fade. Fade, fade into whiteness. "He'll be so happy to…."

Whiteness invaded.

"…see you. Suzaku, I can see you! Is… are you— but what are you doing inside C.C.'s memories?" Suzaku could hear the familiar musing tones before he could see the person he so desperately wished to lay eyes on. "Impossible…. She wouldn't let you do such a thing. Unless…."

Lelouch came into sight at last. School uniform, finely combed hair, hand at his chin in worry and calculation.

"Suzaku," Lelouch said, "why in the world are you here?"

* * *

_Did I say I was making this story two parts? It appears that I lied. I'm making it three. That is indeed a terrible cliffhanger I've left you with. _

_I feel like an ass, because cliffhangers are cheap and I normally despise them. However… when faced recently with the choice of either, "Post what you have," or "Make them wait," I chose… not to make my readers wait. I'm in the middle of a move across the country, so I figured I had better post something now, otherwise there's no telling how long this piece would have to wait._

_In other news, my narration sounded odd to me the whole time I was writing this. It's different than my other Code Geass stuff, no? The tone seemed to fit in the end, so I kept it, but I'm not sure it feels like Suzaku. Ah well. We'll see what you readers think. THANK YOU, ALL OF YOU, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH YOUR FEEDBACK TRULY HELPS ME. Much love to you all._


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